Chocolate firm Thorntons missed out on this year’s high street festive boom after reporting a “disappointing” sales fall for the Christmas quarter today.

But its decision not to resort to the hefty discounting seen the year before helped boost profit margins and offset the sluggish store performance, according to the group.

Online sales at its burgeoning Thorntons Direct site also leapt 10.9% in the second quarter to January 9.

Thorntons made total sales of £80.7m in the three months, down 2.4% on a year earlier. Like-for-like sales across its 378 own-stores dropped 4.4%, while sales in franchise outlets plunged 18.1%.

Comparisons with the previous year were hit by the collapse of retailers Woolworths and Birthdays, which had been a customer and franchise partner of the group.

Its decision to pull out of making less profitable private-label chocolates for other firms also put pressure on sales growth.

However, Thorntons assured that interim profits were still on track to beat last year thanks to efforts to maintain prices, helping send shares up 4%.

Chief executive Mike Davies said: “The decline in own store sales was disappointing, although this was primarily driven by our own decision to protect profit margins through significantly reduced discounting, but we were able to sell all the Christmas stock by the end of the period.”

Thorntons added it was taking action to rebuild its franchise network after the loss of 94 stores when Birthdays went into administration last May.

Its decision to exit private label products also paid off as demand for own-branded sweets from firms helped commercial sales rise 6.5%.